Tiger Woods: "Guys are making more birdies due to less distractions"
Tiger Woods will likely need to finish fourth or better this week in order to progress to the Tour Championship...
Tiger Woods believes the world's best players are making more birdies out on the PGA Tour right now as a result of there being no fans behind the ropes.
Woods, speaking to the media ahead of this week's 70-man BMW Championship, was quizzed as to how different his title defence at The Masters is going to be without any patrons aligning the fairways at Augusta National this November.
"It will be very different without 40,000 people there," said Woods, who won his 15th career major at The Masters last April.
"That's one of the things that we've noticed out here on Tour already is the experience of having to deal with the movement of the crowds, the noise, the roars week in week out, and that's changed. Guys are making more birdies due to less distractions.
"Augusta will just be very different. When I first went there and had a chance to play the course in 1995, and see it with no fans, it was eye-opening to see how much room there is.
"When you put 40,000 people on a small piece of property, and I know there's not much rough, but it gets confined.
"This one will be different but it will be a fun Masters and I am looking forward to defending."
With a lack of noise from the patrons, Woods knows the game plan might need to be slightly different to previous years in order to learn his position in the tournament.
He said: "There aren't many leaderboards out there, and with no roars, scoreboard watching will be very different."
Woods, who ranks 57th in the FedEx Cup standings, will likely need to finish fourth or better at the BMW Championship this week in order to progress into the 30-man Tour Championship at East Lake, a tournament that will ultimately decide who wins the season-long race for the FedEx Cup next month.
"I have to play well, I have to earn my way to East Lake; I haven't done so yet," said Woods, who has picked up just one top-10 finish in five starts on the PGA Tour in 2020.
"I need a good week. If I don't, I go home. It's a big week for me. I'm looking forward to getting out there and competing.
"This golf course is set up more like a US Open than a regular tour event. It's the playoffs, and it's supposed to be hard."
